3 ms·

I don't think you're understanding the calculation correctly. If a district election is 75-25, then the wasted votes is 24 (75 minus the 51 required to win). I

by smeyer 9y ago

I don't think you're understanding the calculation correctly. If a district election is 75-25, then the wasted votes is 24 (75 minus the 51 required to win). I believe the computation of net wasted votes comes from looking across several districts. Here's an example from another article: >Suppose, for example, that a state has five districts with 100 voters each, and two parties, Party A and Party B. Suppose also that Party A wins four of the seats 53 to 47, and Party B wins one of them 85 to 15. Then in each of the four seats that Party A wins, it has 2 surplus votes (53 minus the 51 needed to win), and Party B has 47 lost votes. And in the lone district that Party A loses, it has 15 lost votes, and Party B has 34 surplus votes (85 minus the 51 needed to win). In sum, Party A wastes 23 votes and Party B wastes 222 votes. Subtracting one figure from the other and dividing by the 500 votes cast produces an efficiency gap of 40 percent in Party A’s favor. https://newrepublic.com/article/118534/gerrymandering-efficiency-gap-better-way-measure-gerrymandering https://newrepublic.com/article/118534/gerrymandering-effici...

snarf21 9y ago
He is saying, if you could gerrymanderer every district at 75-25 the gap would be 0 even though it would be likely that couldn't happen without being heavily gerrymandered. I think all districts being 75-25 is not really possible based on how communities grow and group together socially and economically.
- smeyer 9y ago
  But if every district is 75-25, neither party is gaining a net advantage. If you have 10 districts and split them into 5 that are 51-49 and 5 that are 49-51 or if you split them into 5 that are 75-25 and 5 that are 25-75, you have 5 representatives from each party either way. The point of the gap is to distinguish between cases like this (where districts are designed to lump together people of a similar part) from examples of packing and cracking used to give one party an advantage.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > But if every district is 75-25, neither party is gaining a net advantage. Partisan advantage is far from the only reason for gerrymandering; protecting incumbents and dividing particular communities of interest (whether ethnic or otherwise) that don't necessarily align more with either party to effectively silence them are among two of the more common uses. A recent wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering by Republicans is what has made it a national discussion right now, but it's not the only (or even historically the main) problem with gerrymandering. Which is simple to solve: stop having single-member, first-past-the-post districts for legislative bodies.
  - phailhaus 9y ago
    If every district is 75-25, then the issue is that one party is getting 25% of the votes but 0% of the seats. All of their votes have been split across all districts, keeping them from winning any one.
    - mjw1007 9y ago
      One way for that to happen is if party support is evenly spread throughout the region; then however you draw the districts the result will be the same. In that sort of situation it doesn't seem to be reasonable to call what's going on "gerrymandering"; I think the finger of blame should be pointed (if anywhere) at the system of single-member-constituency plurality voting.
      - phailhaus 9y ago
        Our voting system is definitely an issue, but if we want to use the efficiency gap as a metric of gerrymandering then I think this is a big problem. As it stands, the efficiency gap treats a 75-25 split as a "perfect election", which means that it's actually a measure of how far elections are from this ideal. So if we start using the efficiency gap, then there will be a huge incentive for states to draw lines to be as close to 75-25 as possible, which is obviously not what we want. It could even further polarize the country.
    - smeyer 9y ago

by smeyer 9y ago

snarf21 9y ago

He is saying, if you could gerrymanderer every district at 75-25 the gap would be 0 even though it would be likely that couldn't happen without being heavily gerrymandered. I think all districts being 75-25 is not really possible based on how communities grow and group together socially and economically.

smeyer 9y ago
But if every district is 75-25, neither party is gaining a net advantage. If you have 10 districts and split them into 5 that are 51-49 and 5 that are 49-51 or if you split them into 5 that are 75-25 and 5 that are 25-75, you have 5 representatives from each party either way. The point of the gap is to distinguish between cases like this (where districts are designed to lump together people of a similar part) from examples of packing and cracking used to give one party an advantage.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > But if every district is 75-25, neither party is gaining a net advantage. Partisan advantage is far from the only reason for gerrymandering; protecting incumbents and dividing particular communities of interest (whether ethnic or otherwise) that don't necessarily align more with either party to effectively silence them are among two of the more common uses. A recent wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering by Republicans is what has made it a national discussion right now, but it's not the only (or even historically the main) problem with gerrymandering. Which is simple to solve: stop having single-member, first-past-the-post districts for legislative bodies.
- phailhaus 9y ago
  If every district is 75-25, then the issue is that one party is getting 25% of the votes but 0% of the seats. All of their votes have been split across all districts, keeping them from winning any one.
  - mjw1007 9y ago
    One way for that to happen is if party support is evenly spread throughout the region; then however you draw the districts the result will be the same. In that sort of situation it doesn't seem to be reasonable to call what's going on "gerrymandering"; I think the finger of blame should be pointed (if anywhere) at the system of single-member-constituency plurality voting.
    - phailhaus 9y ago
      Our voting system is definitely an issue, but if we want to use the efficiency gap as a metric of gerrymandering then I think this is a big problem. As it stands, the efficiency gap treats a 75-25 split as a "perfect election", which means that it's actually a measure of how far elections are from this ideal. So if we start using the efficiency gap, then there will be a huge incentive for states to draw lines to be as close to 75-25 as possible, which is obviously not what we want. It could even further polarize the country.
  - smeyer 9y ago